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Rand Report Says Geospatial Data Not Big Threat
scupper writes "An article in Federal Computer Week came out Monday that announced The Rand Corporation has published a report (sponsored by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) concerning the threat that publicly available geospatial data on US Government web sites might pose in the hands of terrorists that 'found that less than one percent of the 629 federal data sets they studied appeared to have notable value to would-be attackers', according to the report titled: Mapping the Risks:Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information. A curious 'finding' from page xxv of the summary not mentioned in the article states: 'However, we cannot conclude that publicly accessible federal geospatial information provides no special benefit to the attacker. Neither can we conclude that it would benefit the attacker.' The release of this report reminded me strangly of the Washington Post news story about a George Mason University graduate student, whose dissertation mapped critical fiber optic network infrastructure."
What is their definition of a data set? A data set for the NSA/CIA/FBI may have attributes for military locations, population density, etc.
Now, if they get their hands on a data set by the Parks Commisioner, indicating locations of forests with attributes relating to the trees, I highly doubt that would be threatening.
So a 1% possibility that a data set may be useful to terrorists is subjective, as it depends on their objective.
In the right hands, any data set can potentialy enhance the ability of terrorists. And of course, don't forget. Private companies are the ones that sell most of the data to the government (see US Census for example). Why bother going after government publication of data and not control to whom a company sells the data?
As for the fiber optic map... It was useful not because you can cut cables (redundancy does exist), but because you know the ends of cables are to where corporations are (that is why the dissertation did get credit in the first place). Also, you know that where the biggest bandwidth cable go to is a prime target, as it promises a network depended coproration/entity that could be damaged by loss of communications.
What an organization researches is very different than bias towards the establishment. RAND advocates relaxing drug policy, especially for marijuana. They were the original group who said (and with evidence) that Vietnam was a bad idea. They said this even before we got involved in any significant way. Finally, RAND recommends a moderate Islamic state for middle eastern states we "liberate," which doesn't jive with the religious right's plans. Just because RAND researches for the military doesn't mean it's obligated to make things sound good to warmongers and Republicans (are they different?). RAND is damn objective for the politically sensitive work they perform.